


build a home for you and me

by toneelspeler



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Animal Death, Finding home, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV Second Person, Sexuality, parental neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-09 03:59:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12268431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toneelspeler/pseuds/toneelspeler
Summary: The morning of your first day at Nissen, you hear your mother reciting her bible verses loudly through the wall.





	build a home for you and me

The morning of your first day at Nissen, you hear your mother reciting her bible verses loudly through the wall – your room is adjacent to your parents’ room, which was comforting to you, once. When you were younger, the low voices you heard from your parents’ room were nice – knowing that they were there, that they were talking to each other. Nowadays, your father sleeps in the guestroom and the light of your mother’s room remains on throughout the night.

Lea was the only bright spot in that house, a small black dog who mainly preferred to snore her days away in the comfort of your bed. You could spent hours brushing your fingers through her fur, feeling her breathing and – occasionally, smelling her farting, that made you run to the window to open to get some fresh air inside before it became unbearable. She was old when you got her – on one of her good days, your mother said it’d be better to adopt an older dog, to provide a home for her. It would also be easier for you, eleven-year-old you, to take care of her. You were so happy when you found her, pushing your father to include her on the sign outside the door, because _she’s part of our family, too, pappa!_ And he did.

As the years went on, she was the only part of your family that you called home. Your father dropped you at your grandmother’s house, and after she passes, at Jonas’ house, when it became too much – a whirlwind of screaming, crying and pleading, begging her to finally _get help, I can’t keep on going like this_ ; something which always made it worse.

One night, your father doesn’t come back.

You stick around the house, knowing that you can’t leave her alone – you’re scared for her, scared of what she’ll do, and scared of her, scared of reacting in the wrong manner. You’d give anything to help her, but in the back of your mind you know that it shouldn’t be _your_ responsibility. And it makes you angry, it makes you ache, that the people who should be responsible for you can’t seem to care about _you_ , the boy who feels butterflies in the pit of his stomach when his best friend hugs him. The boy who is going to a new school, but doesn’t want to be close to anyone other than Jonas and Eva, because at least they know. They care.

Lea passes away, early in the spring semester of school. And all you think is good.

Nothing to keep you here.

\--

Kollektivet is, by all means, a weird place. It’s filled with high school students with shitty parents, and university students who couldn’t be more polar opposites of each other. You’d think it wouldn’t work. And it doesn’t, not really – there’s always someone in the bathroom when you need to use it; people take each other’s food without asking; and there’s that nasty little spot behind the couch that no one can reach and, thus, no one cleans.

But it’s infinitely better than the last place you lived in, that cold and distant place with no time or space for recovery. You arrived with a backpack filled with essentials, and over the months, you move more and more of your belongings there – knowing that you’d rather not go back to that place.

It takes a while to get used to your roommates. Linn is an enigma, a girl with a very nice smile and calm disposition – but she reminds you of your mother sometimes; unreachable and in the dark. You like her, but you don’t understand her. Noora is a blessing, always asking for your laundry to wash, but you feel a little guilty that she doesn’t have a space for her own in the apartment anymore. And although no one has asked you to, sometimes it feels like you should’ve moved out the moment she got back. Eskild is a nightmare and a dream all at once; a person who forces you, in gentle and obnoxious ways, to be open about your troubles and your feelings – to be who you are, even if you are scared to be. He’s always there in times of need – for advice, for support during heartbreak, or for keeping your unmoving boyfriend company. He’s the brother you always wished you had, before. All of them break the internal feeling of distance and loneliness you’ve felt – you feel warmth slowly seeping into your bones.

But it gets too crowded, living in a space made for three with five – Even sleeps over more often than not, proclaiming every time that your bed is just _heaven, Isak! I can’t leave, I’m in love with it._ So you make the decision, to ask him whether he’d like to move in to a new place; one for you and him, where the only responsibility you have is your willingly chosen dedication to each other. And for some reason, you already know he’ll say yes. Because it’s him; you’d wander through the water, the earth, and the air with him with no destination in mind if you could.

The last day in Kollektivet feels melancholic – it was the place where you became the man you always wanted to be; a caring, loving person, connected to the people around him. Even the people you just can’t forgive, just yet.

\--

The division of household tasks goes quite naturally, with one of you responsible for the cooking, and the other for cleaning laundry and disgusting fridges. You’d never imagined yourself the one to be concerned with cleanliness; it was never an issue in previous houses, and you just didn’t care. But here, in this tiny place in which one room serves as dining room, living room and bedroom all at once – you want to.

You want the mundane, the ordinary, the domestic bliss; you want his arms around you in every room of the house, even if it’s impractical. You want the nights where you budget your money, teaching him a little of how you’ve survived over the past year with the money you managed to get from your father. And he shows you ways to recycle and to prepare and preserve food for later days, and water, by showering together. Neither of you will let the other person do everything on their own.

And it would be easy to say that you never fight, but you do, and it’s harsh and biting – and it reminds you every time that you chose this, and it makes you realise every time that you wouldn’t have it any other way. That there are still things you could learn about him, even after months of daily contact, and after all the intense periods that you’ve seen together with him. Periods of no sleep, and only sleep. Periods of adjusting to pills and needing more therapy; periods where you sit him down and tell him to breathe with you, where you tell him that it’s a journey he’s not travelling by himself.

There are nights where you toss and turn, where you push him away – needing the room, the space to breathe, to move. After a painful confrontation with your parents, who are finally filing for divorce, you keep staring at the closet while Even draws soothing patterns on your back until you finally feel okay to turn back, into his arms. He doesn’t ask, he doesn’t question, he just gives and gives. He gives the love that he – inherently – is.

In the morning, he’s awake and stroking the side of your neck, and without opening your eyes you kiss him softly on his forehead a few times and tighten your hold on him.

A house has never been home to you. Your dog was. People were.

_Even is._

 

**Author's Note:**

> come and find me on tumblr @toneelspeler!


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